Is 17 Minutes the Right Number?

During the walkouts last week, we honored the 17 students who lost their lives in Parkland. How can we honor the victims who came before them?

By
Sujatha Shenoy

Mar 23, 2018

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Seventeen minutes.

Seventeen minutes to walk out of classrooms and honor the lost lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas (MSD) High School, to stand in solidarity with students across the US, and to send a strong message about guns. Seventeen minutes to hold signs, to chant "never again," and to have parents take pictures of their children’s first moments of activism.

Seventeen minutes to honor 17 lives.

My tweens knew this. Our son held his sign — "#NoMore" — during his school walkout; our daughter chanted and tied an orange ribbon during hers. So it took me by surprise when they asked, "Why was the walkout only 17 minutes?"

They wanted to know why the walkout didn’t include time for the students killed at other schools, for those who had been killed in the shootings in Las Vegas, for the children who die of stray gunshots every year.

We live in Chicago, a city where location determines the contours of childhood.

Why, indeed: How do you explain that number to children who are aware that those 17 students were not the first victims of mass shootings, nor will they be the last children to die because of guns? How do you unpack the underlying combination of location, social media, and, yes, privilege and race, into a conversation about justice and commonsense? In automatically accepting 17 minutes as the right number for these school walkouts, do we reflexively exclude those who already lack the attention and support given to the MSD students?

We live in Chicago, a city where location determines the contours of childhood.

My children lead lives similar to those in the Parkland community — safe, busy with school and friends. Their schools — a magnet public school and a private school — have lockdown drills, but the prospect of a school shooting always felt remote, as likely as running into an ogre at the playground and less scary than a looming test.

But with Parkland, this changed: The shock of the MSD shooting — although still hundreds of miles away — rippled through our communities, forcing conversations about gun violence and the need to act into our homes.

Our shock only underscored our privilege. We did not personally know anyone who had been a victim of gun violence.

In Chicago, sometimes 17 minutes is not enough.

That is not the reality for many Chicago students. Last Wednesday, former Secretary of Education and native Chicagoan Arne Duncan joined students from three local schools on their walkouts. After talking to a group of students, Duncan tweeted, "Just asked them how many know someone who has been shot … almost every hand went up."

Gun violence is a living, daily fear for many Chicago students. Ours is a city where the public school system has "safe passage" routes, paths with adult monitors, for students to walk to 140 neighborhood schools. It is a city where a woman named Tamar Manasseh started Mothers Against Senseless Killings (MASK), an organization that holds block parties and sit-ins to keep guns off the block and keep children safe. It is a city where military medics train with the local trauma centers to get combat level experience in dealing with injuries from guns.

In Chicago, the hashtag #MarchForOurLives is as much a prayer for life as it is a plea to keep guns out of school. In Chicago, sometimes 17 minutes is not enough.

And so, some Chicago students changed the number.

A few individual stories capture our imaginations; add more, and they become mere statistics.

The local ABC affiliate reported that the students from the three schools that Duncan joined — St. Sabina, Leo High School, and Perspectives Charter — added three extra minutes during their walkouts. One minute for Chicago Police Commander Paul Bauer, recently shot and killed while trying to apprehend a suspect. Two minutes for others killed by gun violence.

Then the students released balloons: 17 white balloons for the MSD students, one blue for Cmdr. Bauer, and dozens of red balloons for the victims of gun violence whom the students knew personally.

At North Lawndale College Prep, local news station WGN 9 reported that the students marched with red tape on their mouths. The tape symbolized the silent trauma of growing up with gun violence. The tapes had the names of loved ones lost to violence.

It is an act of great generosity to be able to share and support the grief of others while having received far less attention and support. The Chicago students showed us the way this week. Unsurprisingly, their grace received just as little attention as their daily trauma does.

Is 17 the right number for the national school walkouts? Is it enough?

Seventeen minutes is symbolically significant. Seventeen minutes is fitting to mourn the 17 victims, to underscore the youth of the MSD activists. Seventeen is a number large enough to shock our collective consciousness, and yet small enough to ensure that even the youngest student stays engaged. A few individual stories capture our imaginations; add more, and they become mere statistics; add them daily, and we find it hard to wrap our minds around the true horror.

Still the question must be asked: Is 17 the right number for the national school walkouts? Is it enough? During the March for Our Lives this weekend, perhaps we can follow the example of the Chicago students and add a minute more of silence. Sixty seconds to remember other children who’ve also lost their lives. Sixty seconds to spark conversations about students who face gun violence every day. Sixty seconds. Less than the time that it took you to read this.

Sujatha Shenoy is a writer who loves good stories and data. Her articles on parenting, politics, and culture have been published in Quartz and the New York Times Motherlode blog. Tweet with her @sujatha_shenoy.

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